Mexico City Cannabis Activists Plant Buds at Capital’s Best Known Monument

Mexico City cannabis activist Jade Luna Villavicencio is sure that the end of cannabis prohibition can’t be far away. “There’s a saying that goes, ‘No hay mal que dure cien años’ [nothing bad lasts for a hundred years]’,” said the activist at yesterday’s cannabis plant-in.

If that’s the case, then we’re in the final countdown. Mexico first banned cannabis on March 15, 1920, the result of classist fear-mongering that would later spread to the United States. A century later, the Mexican Supreme Court has declared prohibition of consumption and personal cultivation unconstitutional. But legislators have dragged on passing the laws that would make it official. Their new deadline (they blew the first one) is April 30.

On Thursday, cannabis activists showed once again that they’re tired of waiting in the shadows for regulation. At 4:20 p.m., at the base of the Ángel de Independencia, Mexico City’s most recognizable monument, activists planted 16 marijuana seedlings into the city’s manicured garden beds.

Cannabis activists relax on the steps of the Ángel de Independencia monument after their contingent marched to the plant-in from Mexico City’s Zócalo/ Photo credit: Caitlin Donohue

It was highly unlikely the little guys would make it to maturity before